Continuous Quality Improvement Project: Using the Step-by-Step Guide for Quality Improvement in Diabetes Education

C ontinuous quality improvement (CQI) is a concept that emerged out of industry, whereby individuals identify, plan, and implement ongoing improvements in service delivery. CQI provides an essential approach to assess and monitor the delivery of services to ensure consistency with an organization's best-practice principles. Best practice is defined as a set of processes or procedures that consistently lead to superior results. The concept of CQI has been adapted for health care, building on traditional quality assurance methods and focusing on "processes" rather than the individual. Thus, CQI encourages every member of the health care team or organization to work together in an ongoing process to find more effective and efficient ways of providing service and ensuring optimal patient care.' In this issue of The Diabetes Educator, Pagano, Luerssen, and Esposito provide readers with a method to promote continuous improvement in patient care. Through a quality improvement plan, various health professionals work together to sustain and improve the process of care that is delivered to women who are pregnant and have diabetes. Opportunities to improve mostly focus on examining the systems and processes by which care is provided. These processes cross areas of specialization and departmental lines, necessitating communication and coordination. Sustaining a diabetes in pregnancy program is improved by examining the components of the quality improvement plan.